Monday, August 31, 2015

The Soft Boys- TLA, Philadelphia, PA March 20, 2001

This year, I only took in one day at the annual Winnipeg Folk Festival and I opted for the Sunday (last day of the four day festival) because there were a couple performers that I wanted to see. The evening featured Jenny Lewis and Wilco as final mainstage headliner acts (more on them next post) which was enough for me to shell out over $80 dollars for the one day.

One of the acts I was looking forward to was Robyn Hitchcock who I hadn't seen live yet. Unfortunately, his daytime hour long solo concert conflicted with two other daytime stage concerts I also wanted to see. I opted for the other two, but beforehand attended a multi performer set featuring Robyn, Dan Mangan and The Weather Station, titled "I Get A Kick Out Of You". While each person took turns trading off songs, it was apparent this wasn't the ideal way to get a real feel for Robyn's music live, as it was more of a sampler, but at least I was able to see him perform 4 of his songs. I recorded the whole set (except maybe the last song from TWS) and I may eventually post it.

Personally for me, my favourite Robyn Hitchcock's songs are from his time with his band, The Soft Boys. Robyn fronted this band from the mid-70's to 1980 with a couple of critically acclaimed albums, though they were somewhat underappreciated at the time. Hitchcock filled the following decades, 80's and 90's with his band, The Egyptians, as well as solo albums and touring. The Soft Boys reformed in 2001 with a reunion tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Underwater Moonlight, probably their best known album. As a companion piece to the Young Fresh Fellows TLA recording I posted last month, here's the headlining set by the reunited Soft Boys from 2001. It's an amazing set of their "hits" and the sound is fabulous!
Enjoy!!